RoQuEr

That being, IMHO, their tendancy to be thouroughly tested and bug free. But with the online aspect and the ability to download patches, will this become a blast from the past?

cowboy

its already happened. take a look at mechassault for xbox. its so lacking in multiplayer options that they're throwing them in bit by bit.

I seem to recall one of my xbox live games requiring me to update it the first time I jumped online.


this could also be a good thing too. wouldn't you want a patch to play halo online? or gran tourismo 3?

I think the way xbox did it with moto gp was perfect. the original game doesn't allow you to play online, but if you load up the game with the online demo version that comes with xbox live, you get to race your custom bike online. it also allows you to race on every track. the game just read your old data off the HD.

Flay

*Sigh*

A bug patch will never exist on a console until games are actually copied onto a hard drive and executable game files could be rewritten.

You are talking about something different entirely.

Added content such as new game modes in Mechassault, extra levels for Splinter Cell, or new costumes for DOA3 has nothing to do with making the game bug free.

Ralph Wiggum

If the console business turns to the PC model then I'll probably seriously curtail my playing. I have zero interest in downloading patches.

lesterlong

Agreed. I hope to God that online play has absolutely zero effect on the creation of games for consoles. I've played games online and didn't care for it, I could go my whole my life without doing it again. And hopefully I'll still be able to play the newest games without it.

joltaddict

Its streaming off the DVD. As Flay already pointed out they couldnt patch that if they wanted to.

dgc

As Flay mentioned, there's a difference between bug fixes and additional content.

As fas as the bug fixes are concerned, I don't think this will ever be a problem for console because there will always be people who will never take their console online. In which case downloadable patches won't be an option. They would be obligated to issue patches on discs as well, which would be more cost prohibitive to develop and ship than spending more time to beta test and polish up the game before it is released.

focker

Why are people so freaked out about patching games? You download a small file and double click it. What's the big deal? There are plenty of bugs in console games, just like there are in PC games. The difference is that bugs in PC games actually get fixed a lot of the time by patches. I see the prospect of game patches as a positive thing.

Mattalos

Testers won't let that kind of stuff happen. Testers still need to test Online games too, you know.

Long live the under-appreciated!

Ginsu

The problem I see is that companies will worry more about the multiplay experience than the single play. I am in the boonies and will not have broadband for a looong time. My online pc gaming is limited to RTS, as they are not so lag dependent.

Also if companies feel they can release a product nearly finished to get some money in their pockets, they will fix it up later with a patch. This is a genuine problem in the PC market.

I am all for patches to improve a game or fix a bug but I don't like buying a mess of a game with the promise of having it fixed soon.

belboz

Console games definitely tend to have fewer bugs than PC games. Mainly that's because it's much easier to develop bug-free software on a closed and standardized platform, but it's also due to the fact that developers know that once a product is released, any "showstopper" type bugs are extremely expensive to fix since it would essentially require a recall. This provides a tremendous incentive for the developer to be very thorough in debugging their software and to delay release as long as necessary to deliver a solid product.

Technically, there really would be no reason why XBox games can't be written so that they can accept patches that are downloaded from Live. It'd be fairly simple actually. The real reason why you won't see developers relying on Live to patch their games is because MS won't let them precisely so as to avoid the ugliness of what happens in the PC gaming world.

As for whether game developers will concentrate too much on multiplayer gaming, I wouldn't worry about that. Right now, all the hype may be on multi-player because it's new, but the reality is there's only going to be about 5 to 10 percent of the market that'll be playing online in the near future. Game publishers are well aware of this and most of them are smart enough to know where to concentrate their efforts.

Ralph Wiggum

Why should I waste my time to fix something that shouldn't be broken in the first place?

PC gamers in general seem accept this business model of buying unfinished games so more power to them. I will not and honestly don't mind waiting the extra time for a game to be finished.

Josh H

I doubt it. Unless harddrives become more common, and I don't see that happening. A lot of people are put off by PC games by the hassle of having to install the game, having it crash more often etc. I heard a few people bitching about that in Gamestop the other day. Saying they don't bother with PC games for just that reason.

I don't see console HDs ever used for more than saving, improving load times, and maybe occasional game expansions.

I'm more concerned that if it catches on we'll see even more emphasis on multiplayer gaming, and less on single player gaming. But that's unlikely too, as I'm sure developers know their are probably more gamers out there that never go online (or never play multiplayer period like me).

RenoGQ

Actually, you're wrong... it's already been done, twice.

In MotoGP they issued a patch on live launch day to fix a bug that allowed some people to post .02 sec lap times and they also fixed a bug that made the analog triggers function as digital, along with a few other misc. bug fixes.

In NFL2K3 they issued a patch that added a 90 sec countdown timer to the pause menu for all the lamers that pause the game and leave it there when their losing.

Sloth911

i dont think those are patches, those seem like they are exclusive to online play.

i think a "patch" refers to an upgrade the fixes known bugs, like getting stuck in doors, bad polygons, stuff like that, screen freezing on certain levels, etc.

any "patch" whether or not is a true patch would OBVIOUSLY only be temporary as previously metioned by Flay, because it would only be saved on the xbox harddrive, it could NOT be written to the game disc.

this means the game would have to be "patched" everytime you start it up, which IMO is a very, very bad thing

i think that this is the last thing MS wants to do to with the xbox, make it NECESSARY to have xbox live for bug fixes etc.

only a small poriton of xbox users use/have broadband, i would not worry about single player games dying off.

although, more games that almost online exclusive (unreal tournament) might come out

RenoGQ

So problems in the net code that allow false lap times is not a bug? Analog triggers not functioning as analog is not a bug? Players being able to cheat in ways the developers never intended to cause cheating (pausing indefinately) is not a bug? They were all bugs that got fixed with a patch, plain and simple.

Why is it so hard to believe the game could look to the hard drive for things that were never included on the original disc?

Adam Tyner

I'd argue that it's a different scenario because:

<small>(</small>1<small>)</small> Moto GP was released before XBox Live had launched, making it almost impossible to know what problems might arise.

<small>(</small>2<small>)</small> I might be misunderstanding what I've read elsewhere, but it sounds like the standard version of the game wasn't equipped with XBox Live functionality. This was something added on the disc that ships with XBox Live. It's not patching the game itself, but the online functionality that was supplemental to the original game.

There were similar "patches" to the online PS2 Final Fantasy in Japan.

Sloth911

the definitive answer for "bug" and "patch" from theAmerican Heritage Dictionary
BUG: A defect in the code or routine of a program.

PATCH: A piece of code added to software in order to fix a bug, especially as a temporary correction between two releases.

maybe those definitions wont settle this argument, but in the future we can all use these words correctly. instead of guessing at the meaning.
--------------------------------------

1. The Pause menu a defect? No, just something that was not considered by the programmer, so it WASN'T a bug.

2. Analog Triggers? This one is iffy. Depends, did the programmer intend for the triggers to be Analog, if the answer is "Yes" then it was a bug.

However, if it was an afterthought, someone probably said "analog triggers would be better" and decided to change it, it was not a "defect in the code". I have never designed a game, but imagine mapping, and programming the triggers takes awhile, so they were well aware that they were making them digital.

Groucho

Console game: plug and play

PC game: plug, install, reboot, crash, reboot, tweak, tweak, tweak, patch, tweak, download latest driver for some device, download older driver for another device, tweak, finally get game to play in 320x200 mode with no sound.

finbogg

You can argue about whether or not those are bugs (personally I think they were), but keep in mind both of these games (MotoGP and NFL Fever) were part of the XBOX Live BETA Program when they got patched.

It only makes sense that if you sign up for a Beta test you're going to see things get fixed. That's why MS sent you a new disc on Nov 15th, they addressed these issues and released a final fixed game code (not to say that other problems may not crop up). These are the kind of things that a Beta period is supposed to iron out.

RenoGQ

Actually the bugs were with the "final" version sent to beta testers and shipped to stores.

Here is a post by Shawn Hargreaves (lead programmer, MotoGP) about the bugs fixed in MotoGP online, read it and tell me if you still think that no bugs were fixed via a patch...

The post by Shawn was in response to this question:
Maybe it's already posted here (too lazy to look), but have you guys (Climax) posted a comprehensive list of the fixes to be included in this patch?

Shawns post:
The original list of changes that we agreed with Microsoft was:


To fix the scoreboards glitches:

- Sanity check on collision responses (to prevent excessive reactions).

- Sanity check on bike velocity (reset the bike if it is ridiculously high).

- Sanity check during bike resets (invalidate any lap times where this happened).

- Sanity check on lap times (ignore anything less than 30 seconds).

- Disable collision for bikes which are badly lagged.

- Tweak the spline tracker so people cannot gain time by cutting the last corner again on Jerez.

- Take out the code that syncs local times with the scoreboards, so the scoreboards times will always be considered authoritative. This will make it easier to remove any glitch times if problems do continue.


Changes we already made after the Sep 19 build:

- Fixed a bug in the custom soundtrack listing that was incorrectly displaying the names of soundtracks containing non-ASCII characters.

- Added a time difference display to the overall scoreboard ranking page.

- Tweaked the default scoring values for the stunt mode.


Other bugs that we wanted to fix while we were at it:

- Make the triggers work as analogue when mapped to accel/brake.

- Make the optimatch screen remember options from one search to the next (at the moment it resets all the settings when it is activated, which people have found annoying).

- Sometimes the "player crashed" message comes up even when the player did not really crash: this is an error in the network code and should be easy to fix.

- The overlay showing the names of players in a conversation can get stuck on the screen if you unplug the communicator while speaking.

- Stationary bikes on the starting grid are supposed to ghost out after a while, to avoid collisions, but this isn't always working for some reason. It looks like the ghosting is working when the machine is active and the player just isn't moving, but the bike remains solid if no packets are seen. It is a trivial change to ghost anyone if we haven't had packets from them for a while.

- Make the scoreboards screen accessible from inside the session lobby, and from the pause menu.




In the end we didn't make these two changes, because they turned out to be unnecessary and too high-risk for us to be confident about them:

- Sanity check on collision responses (to prevent excessive reactions).

- Disable collision for bikes which are badly lagged.




But we did include two more alterations:

- Disable position interpolation for bikes that are lagging badly, so if the local estimated position is wildly different from an incoming packet, they will teleport rather than warping.

- Sanity check when crossing the finish line: invalidate the lap time if the bike is not on the track when this happens.

Jackskeleton

the thing is, many bugs are problems that are caused because the Platforms are so different.

With a nintendo, ps2 or xbox, the game makers know everything about the specifics and work around that.

PC game companies have work around specs that are very much varied. Sometimes they make it and some systems can not handle it or have some problems due to drivers. In these cases the Patches are a must.

I doubt you can get a game released without any bugs at the first time. there is usually always some problem that a patch can fix.

Not to mention Patches sometimes offer more to the game. providing new maps, guns, etc.

So it's not as much that us PC gamers don't care about paying money for an unfinished game, We just realize that hey, thats life and running a patch is pretty simple.

RoQuEr

I disagree with your statement. While bonus maps or bonus skins aren't really a patch, changes or improvments to the games functionality are. If a non bugged 640x480 resolution game gets improved to a higher resolution/super duper VGA/widescreen version, that is also a patch. If everyone in the SOCOM ladder uses the same custom controller setup and the developers want to make it into an official one, that is a patch even though it fixes no bugs. If the developer of a mars strategy game adds a template with altered color tiles for the benefit of people with red-green colorblindness, then it is a patch.

A Patch can fix a bug, but any update that alters the way a game plays, or makes cosmetic changes is a patch.

gcribbs

look consoles are becoming more like PC's so yes games that work but may need tweaking will get released in the future if the console offers a way to save the data/patch.

The Xbox has that ability now so the developers will use it if necessary.

The PS3 might have a hard drive so I would not be surprised to see it happen for PS3 games also.


I do not think that online play will ruin consoles since I do not think it will even grow to 5% of the console installed base this generation. I would be shocked to see it grow to 10% the next unless it remains free.

Ralph Wiggum

I love the idea of downloadable content and online gaming, just not other aspects of the PC business model.

I just hope that developers don't start skipping out on modes/features that they had planned on including in order to release them later as a download at an additional cost to consumers.